The problem here isn’t just that Perry has the wrong answer. The more meaningful problem is that Perry doesn’t seem to know how to even formulate an answer. He starts with a proposition in his mind (abstinence-only education is effective), and when confronted with evidence that the proposition appears false (high teen-pregnancy rates), the governor simply hangs onto his belief, untroubled by evidence.

Even worse than the regressive substance of Perry’s policy positions is the degradation of thought itself he and Bachmann and Santorum (and more Republican candidates) exhibit and proudly represent. They are so serious about bringing faith into politics that they go beyond just arguing in the public square for positions that are consistent with their faith, they turn political positions themselves into statements of faith. They “believe that marriage is between a man and a woman”. They do not make an argument for why excluding homosexuals from marriage would be a non-discriminatory policy or show any demonstrable benefits to society that would be gained from it. Instead they just assert a creed and treat an obvious social construct (marriage) like an invisible metaphysical reality in which they “believe” despite no evidence and with a contemptuous hostility towards the very demand for evidence.

While, in principle, I much prefer that people did not get their values from dogmatic faith traditions but reasoned them all out philosophically and in a scientifically informed way—I nonetheless respect people’s rights to settle difficult, ambiguous moral/political questions by erring on the side of what their tradition (faith tradition or otherwise advises) as long as in the public square they respect the demands of evidence and rationality when advancing their positions. The Republican party has gone well beyond encouraging people to settle difficult questions in accord with their faith-shaped consciences to the point of shamelessly making all moral and political matters into blind leaps of faith and all political utterances into confessions of faith. And in this context, because faith is elevated to such a virtue, disdain and indifference to evidence are becoming trumpeted and not even disguised.

Elsewhere I have tried to demonstrate how it is faith which more than anything else poisons religion. In the Republican party everyday we are getting more and more examples of how it poisons politics.